Better animations?

[Vespa 1]

Why is it that the ARMA engine has such static animation? From a technical perspective I mean. Grand Theft Auto and many other games today, the AAA titles I guess we call them, have fluid natural animations that blend together well. I understand that ARMA has computations that far exceed any of those games under the hood.

ARMA games seem like a bunch of static poses (3D modeled pictures so to speak) that instead of flowing into, we seem to "activate". Is a fluid natural transition from one pose to the next in a realistic time frame too much of a burden for the engine? Would it kill performance terribly? I ask out of ignorance and not judgement. While I am a sucker for the aesthetics, my gripes lie more with lack of new features and disappointing sound engine than the animations. Which are a marked improvement.

This is because GTA is 3rd person only, so they can make very purposed animations without compromises. 99% of other games have separate animation set for 1st and 3rd person modes. Arma has only one set for both first person and third person, plus the actual animations make the character move, so that limits what we can do. Of course we considered modifying the engine so it allowed for separate anim sets, but because of structure of the RV engine, this was practically impossible. Because of that, at some points we ended up having to ballance between handling/gameplay or look, between 1st person look and 3rd person look, and thats why especially combat animations are on the stiff side.

[metalcraze 290]

Not mentioning that it's important to have same 1st person and 3rd person anims for body awareness and well - fairness. You can be 100% sure you are fully in cover with freelook but to a side viewer you could look exposed and he could shoot you.

I think considering how actually smooth animations in ArmA3 feel in 1st person now - what we have now is a good enough compromise.

[CombatComm 10]

This is because GTA is 3rd person only, so they can make very purposed animations without compromises. 99% of other games have separate animation set for 1st and 3rd person modes. Arma has only one set for both first person and third person, plus the actual animations make the character move, so that limits what we can do. Of course we considered modifying the engine so it allowed for separate anim sets, but because of structure of the RV engine, this was practically impossible. Because of that, at some points we ended up having to ballance between handling/gameplay or look, between 1st person look and 3rd person look, and thats why especially combat animations are on the stiff side.

Well then all things considered, they are a marked and welcome improvement.

[Tonmeister 14]

the only thing i noticed tonight;

1. after satcheling a group of 20 civvy's the fps drops dramatically, from all the calculations i imagin. Was thinking some may get thrown through the air, but they all flop down. I think i recall an image in an earlier dev video of a guy being thrown through the air from a nade exploding.

2. driving a vehicle at top speed through them is like hitting a wall and stops the vehicle.

could be some elements haven't been completely introduced or streamlined, but they're my observations so far. otherwise i've been enjoying the alpha. great work.

[Kedrowski 1]

I hope they let us keep the current walk animation, but also have more alert and serious ones as well.

I prefer to play OPFOR, and kind of have this image of my character being a PMC of some sort, and walking more relaxed fits this image of mine.

That's just me though.

[HKFlash 9]

In my opinion Arma 2 was the epitomy of realistic "looking" animations. I have never seen another game like it. The soldiers feet hit the ground, and stayed on the ground, until the other foot moved forwards and the standing foot began it's stride. Animations were perfect and there was no floating at all.

LOL, how can you say that?! Arma 2's running animation had the back of foot of the avatar hitting his ass!!!

EDIT: Vespa/Smookie not wanting to transform this into a animations request but please do something about the ladder climbing ones, they are horrible as of now.

Edited March 7, 2013 by HKFlash

[lev 21]

Not really related to animations exactly but just throwing out some ideas that I think were touched upon in this thread:

1. Animations are nice and smooth for the stances and switching IMO.

-Things to be improved on: not freezing the player in place to load magazines/rockets (or at least let the player choose when to load, not immediately after picking up a weapon/ammo)

-Movement speed is a bit too high IMO. Speeds should be reduced a bit across the board. Sprinting speed should be reduced only a small amount but the stamina impact needs to be much higher (shorter sprint durations). Stamina recovery rate is also very high right now and could use a bit of reduction.

2. Combat pace should be a modifier for walking speed, not running speed

-Make it so that combat pace toggles increases the walk speed to the combat pace speed

-Make running speed normal

The reasoning for this is that when I am in combat pace, I want my walk speed to move faster but be ready to run if I need to.

My controls layout are below:

tab - combat pace toggle

shift - walk/run

shiftx2 - walk/run toggle

w+s/s+w - sprint toggle

z- prone

x- crouch

c- standing

ctrl - stance modifier

mouse 4 - slow walk

mouse 4 + w - fast walk

[Lucso 1]

Totally agree with OP, ArmA III animations are very unrealistic( i seriously prefer ArmAIIs animations and overall speed of game), the characters looks weightless. That for me is a huge bummer, since i always thought the best thing about ArmA was its imersion in game, i would never trade natural feel of the game for smoothness, real life isnt smooth everytime. For me ArmA III is steping down to become more like BF3 and less like ArmA series, loosing its slow and calculated gameplay for a random shootout like most fps games now a days...

Edited March 9, 2013 by Lucso

[gliptal 25]

Totally agree with OP, ArmA III animations are very unrealistic( i seriously prefer ArmAIIs animations and overall speed of game), the characters looks weightless. That for me is a huge bummer, since i always thought the best thing about ArmA was its imersion in game, i would never trade natural feel of the game for smoothness, real life isnt smooth everytime. For me ArmA III is steping down to become more like BF3 and less like ArmA series, loosing its slow and calculated gameplay for a random shootout like most fps games now a days...[/b]

It doesn't evene remotely feel like that, you do not have 9*3=27 stances in other shooters, nor 2*2+2=6 different movement and aim speeds (non analogue that is)...

Just as a trivia, that makes (more or less) 27*6=162 possible speed, aim and stance combinations...

Yay!

Edited March 8, 2013 by Max Power

[HKFlash 9]

Totally agree with OP, ArmA III animations are very unrealistic( i seriously prefer ArmAIIs animations and overall speed of game), the characters looks weightless. That for me is a huge bummer, since i always thought the best thing about ArmA was its imersion in game, i would never trade natural feel of the game for smoothness, real life isnt smooth everytime. For me ArmA III is steping down to become more like BF3 and less like ArmA series, loosing its slow and calculated gameplay for a random shootout like most fps games now a days...[/b]

I only agree there was a step into the generic shooter direction because of aiming down sights with the tactical pace. The rest of the work done by the animation developers is great, though some of the new ones need tuning in regards to speed. (and then there's of course the ones which were basically imported from arma2, like ladder climbing, ugh!)

Edited March 8, 2013 by Max Power

[nodunit 397]

Overall I like the animations save for the walking one, in the stratis teaser it was just fine because the speed of motion matched the slow swapper. The hanging arm also looks oddly limp and unnatural when you walk forward right, letting it just hang.

If the hanging arm could be shifted forward when walking that way then it would likely look more natural, and while I doubt it to be possible, having the walk animation being slower would compliment its style.

Edited March 9, 2013 by NodUnit

[Winfernal 2]

I'm out of words. The devs are godlike when it comes to keeping in touch with the community! :)

Ot:

I'm happy to see that the sprinting is being tuned down, it is needed. Any changes being made to the walking animation with the weapon in ONE hand?

[ghostnineone 10]

the walking with one hand animation is weird, they're like penguin steps...

The step over animation is weird as well, I think the one from a2 was better in that regard.

The sniper sit in a3 isnt as good as the one from a2, IMO

Also, I've noticed that all the US MX rifles have magpul AFG's on them, but they are all held wrong, I've never seen an AFG used in any other way but thumb over bore.

http://cdn.magpul.com/images/uploads/64_338_popup.jpg (179 kB)

[Smurf 12]

Facial animations, are they working? Faces have a really nice detail now.

[Ezcoo 47]

For a change, I absolutely love the diving animations, and so does many other people... I even tried to find a bad one, but didn't succeed! They're just... perfect. :)

[minimalaco 30]

The new animations are really good, well done.

[JojoTheSlayer 35]

Some people say ArmA 3 has better animations now.

I agree somewhat, but then again, I dont.

Yes, a lot of animations are more fluid now, but they also look more unnatural. For example walking or running. While ArmA 2 was pretty much perfect at those, aside from running with a side arm in hand. In ArmA 3 models seem to slide a lot and the animations often dont fit the movement speed.

Turning animations also dont look as smooth and natural as in ArmA 2.

I hope this is still due to alpha phase, but I really dont know how people can call it generally better animations.

I kinda agree.

Most are more fluid, but for example going prone and sprinting looks very "studio" green screen like.

He lays himself calmly down. With knee pads in the military you throw yourself to the ground even if you only get shot at with similition.

Sprinting looks unnatural compared to A2. Who really -sprints- with no real body momentum and increased arm sway...

[QuiteFranklyMyMaN 1]

We need a knife throwing anim.

[Beagle 684]

original arma 2 (not OA) had perfect life like animations speeds for stance and walkign running...it was first sped up in OA so it is no surprise that A3 is even faster..a zig zagging cqc game for Player that think zig zagging is what is needed to do cqc

[lao fei mao 21]

@Smookie,

I'm personally happy with ArmA3 anims, they are so cool, and somehow very useful in CQB.

And I hope you could add the butt-slide or kneel slide anims in future, which is also very useful to achieve an emergency stop after sprinting.

And by the way, is there a possibility of binding a key+mouse wheel to adjust the stance?

Edited March 9, 2013 by Lao Fei Mao

[Steakslim 1]

Also, I've noticed that all the US MX rifles have magpul AFG's on them, but they are all held wrong, I've never seen an AFG used in any other way but thumb over bore.

http://cdn.magpul.com/images/uploads/64_338_popup.jpg (179 kB)

They are not intended exclusively for thumb over bore. It was more of an ergonomic solution to how people where using vertical foregrips like an oversized hand-stop. It's just featured mainly with thumb over bore because of Magpul Dynamic's marketing.

[LucsM 1]

I kinda agree.

Most are more fluid, but for example going prone and sprinting looks very "studio" green screen like.

He lays himself calmly down. With knee pads in the military you throw yourself to the ground even if you only get shot at with similition.

Sprinting looks unnatural compared to A2. Who really -sprints- with no real body momentum and increased arm sway...

Agreed, theres also no hip movement and some stiffness on the model on the upper part of the body.

Edited March 9, 2013 by LucsM

[chortles 263]

I will note that there is a somewhat-throwing forward animation (but it's NOT dolphin-diving) for going to prone from a sprint.

I only agree there was a step into the generic shooter direction because of aiming down sights with the tactical pace. The rest of the work done by the animation developers is great, though some of the new ones need tuning in regards to speed. (and then there's of course the ones which were basically imported from arma2, like ladder climbing, ugh!)

As said earlier in the thread, as of soon after Gamescom aiming down sights would still force walk speed (like conventional shooters with ADS) but according to Smookie "recent design decisions" were made to allow combat pace while aiming down sights... however I personally find the sheer mix of long sight lines outside of urban areas, the sheer amount of "seeming muzzle climb/recoil" with weapons, and even the sheer amount of "sight sway" (with collimator sights this is partially thanks to parallax simulation) when aiming down sights in combat pace instead of walk to be effective means of mitigating any "COD effect" from this. :D

TL;DR: Combat pace doesn't "feel" viable outside of 50-or-so meters if even that many! On the other hand, within said 50 meters it completely changes the dynamic, in a much praised-by-Arma-players-outside-of-these-forums way.

(Trivia: To my knowledge Arma 3 is the only "shooter" that lets one move at 'normal' (combat pace) speed instead of forcing walk by default, whereas both MW3 (as a Perk) and Black Ops 2 (as an Attachment) both require that one of the character's "loadout" slots be taken up to move at closer-to-normal speed.)

Thank YOU for supporting us! It is nice to finally see reactions of the public. Definitely keep the feedback coming, we try to make the best out of it.

Shall I copy and paste quotes from other forums? :p I must warn you, some of them in their praise of Arma 3's animations are absolutely vicious about Arma 2's animations...

[zukov 484]

the GL reloading animation is still in pre-alpha :) i hope will be fix soon, and also LMG's reloading animation

[dsi24 12]

People try to ADS while in tactical pace? How do you manage to hit a single thing beyond 10 meters?